Skin (2008)

I usually approach docu-dramas cautiously - they can certainly be a mixed bag, where the story usually trumps any attempt at creating art; thankfully Skin, due to the very nature of its story, is so compelling that it transcends the genre. Telling the story of a 1960's South African girl, born to white Afrikaner parents, Skin shows us apartheid up close and personal, since Sandra, the young girl in question, appears to be "black". The story shows it all, how the government's rigid yet ridiculous determinations of race affect both sides of the equation, leaving Sandra an outcast in both worlds. The story focuses on Sandra as she grows up - from getting tossed from an all white (segregated due to Apartheid) school due to her appearance, to her late teen years as her white parents try to hook her up with suitable white suitors. Ultimately she falls for a black man who seems the only man who can make her smile. When her father finds out he has his own daughter arrested - since doing the horizontal with someone not of your race is considered a moral crime. What strikes you most, aside from the austere terrain, is how Sandra is a woman with one foot in each world, and yet an outcast in both. By law she cannot marry outside her race, so the children she produces with her black "husband" are considered an affirmation of her lawlessness, and is always aware that the government can step in at any moment and take her children from her. And yet she "looks black" so cannot find a good "white" job, or fit in with white society. The story is heartbreaking showing not only Sandra's strong character, but how a system can destroy - case in point is the destruction of Sandra's black shanty town; not only do the bulldozers level the place (so white folk can develop the area), but they also destroy the dreams and ultimately the soul of Sandra's man - as well as the formerly loving relationship they had together. There was no reason for any of this, and yet bigotry still runs rampant, each generation instilling the same fear and apprehension of things we find different from ourselves. I found the performances profound throughout, especially that of Sophie Okonedo as Sandra and Alice Krieg as her mother, caught in two hells - the one concerning the color of her daughter's skin and a second as a 1960's wife who must meekly obey her husband, though it breaks her heart to do so. A thought provoking film on so many levels - this should be required viewing for all early teens.